Have you always wanted your headers to be rendered in Fondamento italic? How about Cinzel bold? Now they’re just a few clicks away, for every site on WordPress.com.

If you are still looking for that perfect typeface and Google Fonts aren’t for you, all the Typekit commercial fonts are still available for those sites with the Custom Design upgrade.

We can’t wait to see what you do with the new Google Fonts on your site! If you have suggestions for other typefaces that you’d like us to consider adding, please let us know in the forums or in the comments below!

Filed under: Customization, Features]]>https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/free-google-fonts/feed/53Google-FontssirbrilligWordPressers Making a Splashhttps://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/wordpressers-making-a-splash/
https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/wordpressers-making-a-splash/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 16:00:10 +0000http://en.blog.wordpress.com/?p=31748]]>We read hundreds of blogs and websites every day, from up-and-coming voices and established pros alike. We love visiting those sites on WordPress.com, but it’s just as rewarding to see other platforms embrace the work of writers, journalists, and artists who regularly publish here, introducing it to new audiences.

Here’s a selection of WordPress.com bloggers who recently made a splash.

A mathematician at work

Terry Tao is a veteran blogger, publishing prolifically on his site since 2007. He also happens to be a Fields Medal recipient and one of the leading mathematicians working today. The New York Times Magazinejust ran a fascinating profile of Tao and his work by Gareth Cook. Cook follows Tao around the UCLA campus as he explains his most important contributions to the field.

Even those who experience great success through their college years may turn out not to have what it takes. The ancient art of mathematics, Tao has discovered, does not reward speed so much as patience, cunning and, perhaps most surprising of all, the sort of gift for collaboration and improvisation that characterizes the best jazz musicians.

Tao has earned a reputation for being a gregarious, generous colleague — and the piece is studded with testimonies of his collaborative spirit (including a cameo appearance by Izabella Laba, a fellow mathematician and WordPress.com blogger).

Highbrow laughs

The Toast, a humor site with a literary, feminist bent (and a self-hosted WordPress site to boot) has been one of the web’s favorite destinations for satire and witty writing since its inception. And just in the past few weeks, two WordPress.com bloggers had pieces in the site’s lineup.

Beyond hot takes

Bloggers share writing in a variety of genres and tones on their sites, from short, impassioned reaction pieces to probing longreads. The same versatility is easy to discern in the pieces we highlight here.

My mother once told me that black progress meant fighting for your children to never know you. Coates knows his son’s body is vulnerable but he worries first here about his son forgetting. He is afraid of losing his son to the “new black” of multiculturalism that absorbs blackness and spits out beige history, beige politics and beige faiths.

Lastly, just this past weekend Rebecca Schuman, who blogs frequently at pan kisses kafka, scored a viral hit with her Slate column, “I Am Terrified of Taking My Child Literally Anywhere.” It’s a raucous, absorbing piece on parents, misbehaving kids, and the people who mistreat the latter — and especially on our dangerous tendency to react to these stories online with unnecessarily extreme rhetoric. It’s a great read for anyone who ever sat behind a crying baby on a flight (or for anyone who was ever the parent of such a baby).

Was your blog just featured in the media? Has a recent post generated a healthy dose of buzz? We’d love to know about it — share your story with us in a comment.

Filed under: Community, WordPress.com]]>https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/wordpressers-making-a-splash/feed/52waves-768777_1920 (cc0)benhubermanVia Gretchen McCulloch's essay at The Toast, a proposed early-20th-century "irony mark." August in Blogging U: Blogging 101https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/august-blogging-101/
https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/august-blogging-101/#commentsTue, 28 Jul 2015 16:00:00 +0000http://en.blog.wordpress.com/?p=31736]]>Have you just started blogging (welcome!), or are you looking to breathe new life into a blogging habit that’s fallen by the wayside? Blogging U. is a great way to get on track, with bite-size assignments, a supportive community, and staff to support you. This August, we’re offering Blogging 101— and registration is now open!

Blogging 101: Zero to Hero — August 3 – 21

Blogging 101 is three weeks of bite-size blogging assignments that take you from “Blog?” to “Blog!” Every weekday, you’ll get a new assignment to help you publish a post, customize your blog, or engage with the community.

You’ll walk away with a stronger focus for your blog, several published posts and a handful of drafts, a theme that reflects your personality, a small (but growing!) audience, a grasp of blogging etiquette — and a bunch of new friends.

I have fallen in love with blogging all over again. It’s been wonderful. I am learning so much, and my blog is looking better than ever.

How do Blogging U. courses work?

Blogging U. courses exist for one reason: to help you meet your own blogging and writing goals.

Courses are free, flexible, and open to all.

You’ll get a new task to complete each day, along with our best advice and favorite resources. Do them on your own time, and interpret them however makes sense for your specific blog and personal goals — we’re not grading you, we’re not checking to make sure you complete every task, and there’s no “wrong” way to use the resources we give you.

We’ll send you a new assignment via email each weekday at midnight GMT. Weekends are free.

Each course will have a private community site, the Commons, for chatting, connecting, and seeking feedback and support. Daily Post staff and Happiness Engineers will be on hand to answer your questions and offer guidance and resources.

Ready to register?

Just fill out this short form! There’s no automated confirmation; you’ll receive a welcome email just prior to the start of your course. If you’re on a mobile device or reading this via email and don’t see the form, you can register with this link.

The Dinner Party Collective is a collaborative blog dedicated to “reinvigorating the delicious lost art of dinner parties.” The DPC features seasonal full-course menus, photos, and recipes from apéritifs to dessert (complete with wine pairings, no less!) ideal for dinner groups of six to eight. Blogger Margot leads an international troupe of food and wine lovers who contribute recipes and knowledge to each menu’s selections.

Vasun is the blogger behind Cupcakes and Curries. Based in Singapore, she cites her grandmother as her culinary inspiration. Vasun’s posts combine detailed recipes, enticing photography, and advice on how to make each recipe your own. We came for the Pepper Chicken Masala but stayed for the Thai-Style Minced Meat Pasta. Be sure to check out Vasun’s recipe list.

Which food blogs do you visit for inspiration and cooking courage? Share your favorites with us in the comments.

Filed under: Community]]>https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/07/15/four-food-blogs/feed/46kitchen-cooking-interior-decorkristastevensThe Winter Menu, Southern Hemisphere, June 2015 by The Dinner Party CollectiveThai-Style Minced Meat Pasta by VasunSalted Caramel Chocolate Tart by JaneMuesli Mounds by Pia DirksReader Refreshhttps://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/reader-refresh/
https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/reader-refresh/#commentsMon, 13 Jul 2015 17:19:28 +0000http://en.blog.wordpress.com/?p=31609]]>Today, we’re proud to present an improved version of the WordPress.com Reader. We’ve made the Reader faster, with shorter load times and smoother scrolling. We’ve also improved the way we display posts, so you can now see the highlights of each story at a glance.

The new interface works just as well on a mobile device as it does on your computer, so it’s simpler and faster for you to catch up on blogs while on the go.

Keeping track of recent posts from the blogs and sites you follow is now both easier and more fun. Our new cards — which preview each post’s content — highlight great photography and make it easy to scan for something that looks interesting. New typography has improved readability, while the new Full Post View pushes the interface to the background, allowing you to focus on the story, whether it’s composed of text, pictures, or video (or any combination of these).

All these improvements work for nearly any site on the web, not just those hosted on WordPress.com: if it has an RSS feed, you can follow it. If the site happens to be a WordPress.com site, though, just look for the Follow button at the bottom of the page — click it, and you’re done.

We hope you enjoy the improved Reader!

Please note: these changes currently affect the web Reader only; we’re working on bringing these improvements to our iOS and Android apps soon.

Note: we’ve just updated the workshop times slightly — see below for the final schedule.

BlogHer ’15, one of the biggest and best annual conferences for bloggers, lands in New York City later this week, from July 16th through the 18th. You’ll find hundreds of passionate bloggers, workshops to hone every aspect of your blogging, incredible keynote speakers like Ava DuVernay and Gwyneth Paltrow — and us!

At our Happiness Lounge in the expo hall, you’ll be able to get one-on-one help with your WordPress sites. Staff from across Automattic will also be leading mini-workshops on some of the topics you care most about, and our “WordPress Insiders” panels bring multiple WordPress.com staffers together for informal panels to give you a range of takes on everything from tools to traffic.

The WordPress.com booth hums with activity at BlogHer ’14.

Interested? Here’s the complete schedule:

Friday, July 17

10:30 AM: WordPress Insiders: Our Favorite Dashboard Tools

11:30 AM: Express Yourself: Quick Tips for Customizing Your Site

12:30 PM: Make Connections: Using Jetpack to Share Your Content

2:00 PM: WordPress Insiders: Our Favorite Traffic-Boosting Tips

3:00 PM: Fight for Your (Copy)right: Intellectual Property Basics

4:00 PM: Making Blogging a Habit

Saturday, July 18

10:30 AM: Lock Down: Securing Your Site with Jetpack

11:30 AM: WordPress Insiders: Our Blogging Quirks

2:00 PM: Your Site, Your Brand: Social Media and Beyond

3:00 PM: If You Publish, They Will Come: Traffic and Growth Basics

4:00 PM: The Hidden Gems of WordPress.com

You’ll find us at booth 1108, just inside the entrance to Hall One. Stop by — we’d love to chat WordPress or blogging, or just say hi and shower you with swag!

If you can’t be there, you can always follow the fun on Twitter with #BlogHer15 — we’ll also be tweeting with the #WPlovesBlogHer hashtag.

Baskerville was designed by Anders Norén, and it displays writing, photos, and videos in a dynamic, grid-based layout. It features unique layouts for different post formats, to make different kinds of content pop. Baskerville’s design adapts to any screen size, big or small, so your posts always look their best.

Get to know Baskerville on the Theme Showcase, or give it a spin by activating it from Appearance → Themes.

Edda, designed by Mel Choyce, is flexible enough to be used as a photoblog, personal journal, or tumblelog. The theme’s sepia-toned images and stylish color give your content an elegant, vintage look and feel.

Check out Edda on the Theme Showcase, or try it out on your blog by activating it from Appearance → Themes.

Filed under: Themes]]>https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/07/09/baskerville-edda/feed/27baskerville-pagelaurelfulfordbaskerville-pagebaskerville-responsive-trioEdda WordPress themeedda-responsive-trioOur World Through a Lens: Photography Blogs to Follow Nowhttps://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/07/08/our-world-through-a-lens-photography-blogs-to-follow-now/
https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/07/08/our-world-through-a-lens-photography-blogs-to-follow-now/#commentsWed, 08 Jul 2015 15:00:50 +0000http://en.blog.wordpress.com/?p=31435]]>Some of the best photographers and professional photo organizations maintain their homes on WordPress.com. See the world through their eyes.

Paul Zizka is a professional mountain landscape and adventure photographer based in Banff, Alberta. His photographs celebrate the power and beauty of the outdoors, from the sprawling backcountry of Canada to hard-to-access locations in the wilderness. His night landscapes are spectacular.

Travel photographer Susan Portnoy focuses on wildlife and indigenous cultures and contributes to various outlets, including Yahoo Travel. She’s based in New York, but as her readers know, she’s usually off exploring a faraway destination. Her recent photo essays from Namibia on her blog, The Insatiable Traveler, are worth a peek.

Aaron Joel Santos is an editorial and documentary photographer who shoots for publications like the New York Times and TIME and covers a wide range of subjects, from landscapes and portraits to fashion and weddings. You’ll get a taste of his sophisticated yet edgy style on his personal blog, From Swerve of Shore. Over the years, he’s wowed us with his images of Southeast Asia — especially Hanoi, Vietnam — and we always look forward to what’s next.

We’ve highlighted Stephanie Dandan at Infinite Satoribefore, but she’s continued to inspire us with her adventures in the Philippines, Cambodia, and currently Australia. She captures the fleeting and serendipitous moments of travel, where at times it feels like you’re awake in a dream.

After spending years working on visual effects in the film industry, filmmaker and photographer David Feuillatre decided to leave Vancouver, British Columbia, to travel the world, meet new people, and tell their stories. On his blog, David with a Movie Camera, he publishes videos of his encounters along the way, and posts images of vibrant scenes and portraits. Under the Countries tab in his menu, you’ll find photographs by location — Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and India.

The blog of Flickr features the best from the online photo management and sharing site, from curated collections (flags around the world) to photographer features (Canadian photographer Erik Peterson in Tashkent, Uzbekistan). The community-fostering weekly themes (Flickr Friday, Twitter Tuesday) make you want to grab your camera and get shooting.

Libre brings a stylish, classic look to your personal blog or longform writing site. The main navigation bar stays fixed to the top while your visitors read, keeping your most important content at hand. At the bottom of your site, three footer widget areas give your secondary content a comfortable home.

Customize Libre with a logo or a header image to make it your own, or use one of two custom templates — including a full-width template with no sidebar — to change up the look of your pages. Libre sports a clean, responsive design that works seamlessly on screens of any size.

Read more about Libre on the Theme Showcase, or activate it on your site from Appearance → Themes!